Food Labelling

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A typical supermarket offers about 20,000 different food items. Food labels can help you choose from among the options available. Knowing how to read food labels can help you get the best value for your money.

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While it is best to choose fresh foods as far as possible when shopping, nowadays processed foods are afso a regular item on the weekly shopping list. They can save time and offer you a wider variety of foods all year round.

Food labels can help give you:

• value for money - you can compare products in terms of weight for money, number of servings and use the ingredients list to see what you are paying for;
• healthy eating information - more and more products give you nutrition information so you can check the nutrient content of foods.

Ingredient Labels

Ingredient labels are listed on a product by weight, from most to least. While ingredient labels do not show the exact amount of any ingredient, they do give you an idea of the relative amount of each ingredient. For example, if sugar is listed first on a cereal product, that cereal has more sugar than any other ingredient. Reading ingredient labels can help you choose foods that are lower in sugars, fat and salt.

Nutrition Labels

Nutrition labels are not required by law on food products unless nutrients are an added ingredient (for example, iron in breakfast cereals) or when a nutrition claim is made for the product (for example, low in fat). Even so, many manufacturers voluntarily put nutrition labels on foods and the number of food products carrying nutrition labels continues to grow. Nutrition labels can be very helpful in making healthy food choices.

They show you:

• the serving size, number of servings per container and energy (calories), protein, carbohydrate and fat, per 100 serving and sometimes per serving of the product;
• percentage of the recommended daily allowances for certain nutrients, on some food labels;
• additional vitamins, minerals and cholesterol on some food labels.

Always check serving sizes when comparing nutrition label5 from different products. Each manufacturer chooses serving sizes, so they may vary from product to product. Look at the sample label shown opposite. This is the standard formal for a nutrition label.

HOW TO READ FOOD LABELS

Once you know what to look for on a label you can check out which foods offer the best nutritional value and value for money.

Look out for the following:

Name. This cannot be misleading, for example, strawberry yogurt must contain real strawberries, or else it can only be called strawberry- flavoured yogurt. Check the ingredients label to be sure.

List of ingredients. Ingredients are listed in order of weight with the largest amount first.

Datemark. Must appear on the product. "Use by" means the product must be used before that date and should not be on sale after that date. "Best before" means the product is safe after that date, but the food may no longer be at its best.

Nutrition Information. You can check out the energy, protein, carbohydrate or fat content. Nutritional labeling is not required unless products make a nutritional claim such as "low in fat", where nutrition information must then be shown to back up this claim. Some manufacturers compare amounts to the recommended daily allowance (RDA). It is best to use the label as a guide while basing your food choices on the Food Pyramid guidelines. Check the tables below on how to compare products using ingredient and nutrition labels.

Weight. Helps you to compare price for weight and estimate how much you need.

Manufacturer. Useful if you want to contact them or make a complaint. The big e means that the average weight must be accurate, but individual weights of packs may vary.

COMPARING FOOD LABELS

We asked a Dietitian to compare two brands of cheese and tomato pizzas. The ingredients and nutrition information for both brands are listed below and the comparison gives interesting results.

BRAND A	BRAND B
Ingredients: Wheat flour, vegetable oil, water, mozzarella, tomato, cheddar cheese, tomato puree, vegetable fat, sodium, yeast, thickener, salt, sugar, herbs, spices. Weight 290g Cost 1.74 Punts Serves 1	Ingredients: Wheat flour, water, mozzarella, tomato, cheddar cheese, tomato puree, vegetable fat, yeast, thickener, salt, sugar, garlic, herbs, spices. Weight 290g Cost 1.89 Punts Serves 1

Nutrition information: Typical values per l00g

List of Nutrients	Brand A	Brand B
Energy (kcals) (may also be given as MJ or KJ)	228	196
Protein (g)	6.8	9.1
Carbohydrate (g) (of which sugars)	25 7.9	27 6.0
Fat (g) (of which saturates)	12.0 3.0	6.5 1.5
Fibre (g)	1.5	1.9
Sodium (g)	0.8	0.5

Dietitian's comment:

Fat is second on the list for brand A and appears again as vegetable fat later in the list, whereas it appears seventh on the list for brand B. In brand A cheese is fourth down the list compared to third in brand B. Salt appears twice on the list in brand A - as sodium and again as salt.

Differences in the ingredients used in both brands can easily be seen in the nutrition information given - there is nearly double the amount of fat and salt in brand A, which also contains more sugar than brand B. These differences might appear small, but remember that the values given are per 100g, so the 290g pack or average serving contains nearly three times these values.

Verdict:

Even though brand B is 15p more expensive than brand A, the extra cheese and lower fat, salt and sugar content are worth the extra money.